Job Cuts
Royal Dutch Shell PLC plans to cut 5,000 jobs to cope with continuing weakness in the global economy. The company is not expecting a swift economic recovery so plans to make job cuts in its middle management. The cuts come on top of 500 layoffs among senior management earlier this year. Around 15,000 employees will also be forced to apply to keep their jobs and additional cuts are possible in 2010.
Tech Center
Wacker is strengthening its presence in India by opening a technical center in Mumbai. The facility will serve as a regional competence center for developments and applications in the construction, coatings, plastics and textile coatings industry. The main focus will be on construction polymers, silicone emulsions, sealants, silanes and silicone resins.
Ethylene Plant Expansion
Petkim Petrochemical Holding AS has awarded The Shaw Group Inc. a contract to provide engineering and procurement services and additional study work for an ethylene plant capacity expansion in Aliaga, Turkey. Shaw built the original plant in 1986 and performed basic engineering for the previous capacity revamp to 520 kTA in 1999. The new expansion will increase ethylene production capacity by approximately 10 percent.
Simulator for Phenol Plant
KBR has been awarded a contract by Kayan Petrochemical Company to develop and implement an Operator Training Simulator (OTS) for its phenol plant in Saudi Arabia. KBR will develop a customized, high-fidelity simulator to be used for the initial training of the phenol plant’s operations and for continual refresher training after plant startup.
Methanol Project
Salalah Methanol Company has begun receiving natural gas supplies at its complex in Oman, a key phase in the development of its world-scale project. The arrival of natural gas puts the facility into the commissioning phase ahead of commercial production scheduled early next year. Construction of the plant is now more than 90% complete. At full capacity, the plant will produce around 3,000 metric tons of methanol/day.
New Plant
Univation Technologies, LLC’s UNIPOL PE Process has been selected by Yulin Energy and Chemical Limited of Yanchang Petroleum Group for a 300,000 ton/year polyethylene plant. The facility will be located in Shaanxi Province, China and will be fed by a combination of conventional feedstock and coal-to-olefins feedstock. The facility will produce linear low-density polyethylene. Startup is planned for 2013.
